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Lee Harvey Oswald talks to the media as he is led down a corridor of the Dallas police station for another round of questioning in connection with the assassination of U.S. President John F. Kennedy. November 23, 1963

Enda said: “He was on duty one day when he was sent to deal with what he described as ‘an obnoxious drunk’ at the city’s bus station.

“Bill tried to reason with the drunk guy but he was having none of it.

“There was a complication in that the guy was with a woman, who Bill assumed to be his wife – and a little girl.

“When it became clear he wasn’t going to calm down and behave Bill told him he was arresting him and he would be locked-up.

“So, he took the rifle off him, arrested him, took him down to the police station and told him he would be locked-up until he sobered up.

“That was it and once he had slept it off the next day he let him out, gave him his gun back and off he went.”

Bill said he didn’t think much of the incident until Oswald’s picture was splashed across TV screens on November 22, 1963, the day of JFK’s assassination.

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President John F. Kennedy waves from his car in a motorcade in Dallas. Riding with Kennedy are First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy, right, Nellie Connally, second from left, and her husband, Texas Gov. John Connally, far left. November 22, 1963 (Image: AP Photo/Jim Altgens, File)

Bill recognised him instantly, as the drunk from the Chicago bus station a year earlier.

“I thought, that’s the dirty dog I arrested down at the bus depot that time on the Greyhound bus,” he told Enda.

“I’d recognise him anywhere. I could have told the captain about the arrest but I didn’t.

“I just kept it to myself but I never forgot it.”

Bill, who was born in Killasser, near Swinford in 1908, was always modest about his role as a police officer.

It ran in the family. His brother Patrick, who was also a member of Chicago Police Department, was once involved in an operation to arrest Al Capone.

Bill passed away on July 6, 2001 at the age of 93.

He had been living independently in Phoenix, Arizona, following the death of his wife Catherine some years previously.